Getting a piece of terror pie
Homeland agency tells tech firms how
Tom Abate, Chronicle Staff Writer Friday, August 1, 2003
An overflow crowd filled the conference hall at Mountain View's Veritas Software Corp. Thursday to hear the Department of Homeland Security's new technology guru explain how Bay Area firms can tap into an anti-terrorism research budget that could reach the $1 billion range in the next few years.
"We need to let you know who we are so we can work together," Jane Alexander told nearly 200 people, many of whom took notes as she spoke.
With corporate spending still sluggish, government contracting has taken up a more prominent position in Silicon Valley -- a corporate culture that has traditionally relied primarily on private funding and public markets. The interest in Alexander's visit was underscored by a Commerce Department report that attributed the economy's second-quarter growth, in part, to the biggest rise in defense spending since 1951.
The Department of Homeland Security was formed in 2002 by uniting 22 federal agencies -- including the Coast Guard, the Secret Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency -- in one department charged with preventing terrorist attacks, reducing the vulnerability of the nation's people and vital arteries, and bolstering recovery efforts in the event attacks should occur.
Alexander, a physicist with a career in defense research, was recently tapped to head the newly formed Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency. It is modeled after the Defense Research Projects Agency, renowned for helping spawn the Internet but ridiculed recently for backing a controversial plan to create an Internet betting parlor where people could wager on terrorism targets.
Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America, the Washington trade association that co-sponsored Thursday's event, drew laughs when he alluded to the terrorism-betting tempest and added, "We won't ask Dr. Alexander to comment on that particular project."
Alexander, who told reporters that her agency would probably have a fiscal year 2004 budget in excess of $350 million, said most of that money will be directed at near-term security needs, such as helping local, state and federal disaster authorities communicate after attacks.
As Alexander explained, there are more than 44,000 local police departments in the United States, and even more fire departments, which means there might be as many as 100,000 agencies that could find themselves "first responders" to a terrorist attack.
Alexander said whether these local agencies are using radios purchased in the 1960s or state-of-the-art gear, she would like to find a cheap, technological means to get all the systems on the same wavelength after a terrorism incident, without forcing local agencies to buy all new equipment.
"To replace all radios for these first responders has been estimated from $8 billion to $30 billion," she said.
In addition to such practical steps as patching together local communications, Alexander said a prime focus of the agency would be improving the detection of airborne biological terrorist threats. Scientists already know how to quickly identify dangerous chemical agents in the air, she said. But there are no quick ways to determine whether a biological cloud is a weapon or just a plume of the natural insecticide Bacillus thuringiensis, which organic farmers spray to control crop pests.
"I would dearly love to have a technology that would say, 'Yes, that's anthrax,' " she said.
Alexander said the agency is racing to hire program managers and getting ready to publish a series of solicitations that will provide a more detailed idea of what the Department of Homeland Security considers its top needs in terms of anti-terrorism technology. But the new agency is still ironing out details of how it will publicize its needs and accept and review queries, she said.
For now, interested parties should check the department's Web site (http://www.dhs.gov) to stay abreast of developments. The agency has also been using a Defense Department Web site (http://www.bids.tswg.gov) to solicit and review proposals, Alexander said.
E-mail Tom Abate at tabate@sfchronicle.com.
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